Thermal specifications of computer system components may define the maximum temperature at which the component may break down, may slow down, or may fail. The temperature of a component may depend upon usage. For example, the temperature of a memory controller and/or a memory device may depend upon the rate at which the memory controller accesses the memory device. While a memory controller and a memory device may support for example a peak transfer rate of 800 MB/s, the memory controller and memory device in certain environments may be able to support a sustained transfer rate of only 500 MB/s without exceeding their thermal limits. In some computer systems, the memory controller may access the memory devices in bursts up to the peak transfer rate (e.g. 800 MB/s) but may limit or throttle accesses to the memory devices to maintain less than a supported sustained transfer rate (e.g. 500 MB/s) in order to guard against overheating.